After a short practice Saturday, Viking players usually clear out of Winter Park for a few hours before heading downtown to the team’s hotel.

They take a nap. Watch college football. Hang out with family.

So Vikings trainer Eric Sugarman was caught off guard that evening when he stopped by Winter Park to pick up something from the training room.

“For some reason, he opened up the door of the film room at 5:30 Saturday night and (Brett) Favre is sitting in here looking at tape before we went to the hotel, which is rare,” Vikings coach Brad Childress said Monday. “Most guys vacate this place after the mock game and go home. He spends time at his trade.”

Although he has known Favre for several years, Childress said the quarterback’s work ethic has surprised him. Despite joining the team late, on Aug. 18, Favre quickly has grasped the Vikings’ offense and now carries a league-high passer rating of 112.1.

“When you are not in a building with a guy every day, you don’t know how he works, how he grinds, how he spends time in his trade,” Childress said. “Is he just living off of skills and ability?”

Favre text messages his teammates. He takes DVDs home.

“He spends a lot more time in here than anybody knows about,” Childress said. “It’s not that he’s upstairs roaming about the coaches offices.”

Tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said he’s heard of Favre hanging out at Winter Park watching film until 9 or 10 p.m.

Practice makes perfect: The addition of Favre has helped improve the Vikings’ passing offense, but Shiancoe said he and the other receivers have worked hard to separate more from defenders.

“We made sure that we worked on that this year, that man-to-man coverage, because that’s what was killing us for the last couple of years,” Shiancoe said. “Man-to-man coverage, people couldn’t get open.”

Receiver Sidney Rice, who leads the team with 50 catches and 875 receiving yards, noted his unit has been hearing a lot of criticism in recent years.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of bad talk about this receiving corps,” Rice said. “We’re out there trying to get better.”

The players work on assorted drills, study opponents’ coverages and work on their technique.

Shiancoe said the extra work has helped players catch the ball and run routes more naturally.

“We are doing it effortlessly. It’s second nature to us now,” he said. “We’re doing it so (darn) much. We’re living here.”

Childress said the work is paying off. Teams used to play man-to-man coverage against the Vikings because they struggled to beat it. But now they are seeing more of a mix.

Defensive pressure: Earlier this season, when the Vikings had a lead, they were more inclined to call on their defense to play a more conservative style.

But against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, the defense didn’t pull back on blitzes.

“We just wanted to keep the pressure on, even though we had the game in hand,” defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said. “We wanted to change it up a bit.”

The Vikings lead the league with 36 sacks, and the defensive line applied consistent pressure on Seahawks Pro Bowl quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.

“Our front is arguably the best in the National Football League,” Frazier said, “and they had constant pressure without us having to blitz a whole lot.”

Frazier said the Seahawks constantly called on a tight end to help with pass protection.

Briefly: The Vikings rank 15th in the NFL in takeaways, but they are tied for fifth with a plus-six differential because they have only 10 turnovers, the second-fewest in the league.

Staff writer Rick Alonzo contributed to this report.

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